Waltham Forest 1-0 Clapton

Waltham Forest earned another three points and went seven games unbeaten in the process with a deserved victory over east London neighbours Clapton.

Playing in front of the highest attendance at Wadham Lodge for almost 20 years, Forest controlled the game from early on, and were driven by the debuts of Ramone Cassidy-Sinclair and Abdoulie Njai, who caused the visiting defence problems all afternoon.

And it was Njai who gave Forest the lead with just ten minutes played, the Tons defence holding off long enough for the front-man to fire in.

Chid Onokwai, John Lye and Joe Creasey all shot wide or over of the target when well placed, and Njai should have done better on a couple of occasions.

As expected, Clapton came out with far more gusto in the second half, and could have levelled just a couple of minutes in the half, when a combination of wayward shooting and some heroic defending kept four shots in the space of ten seconds out.

Forest continued to be dangerous on the break though, and skipper Mo Sagaf hit the bottom of the post with Richie Robbins stranded, before the visiting keeper did well to deny Vicente Belho who shot low and hard after turning two defenders on the bye-line.

It was all hands to the pump in the Forest penalty area as Clapton threw everyone forward, and Forest had their keeper Mo Ahmed to thank after shaking off two injuries to leap acrobatically and deny a goal-bound Clapton header in the 94th minute.

There was still time for some handbags on halfway, which ended with Belho given a yellow card.

But Forest held firm and secured another huge three points in the battle at the bottom of the table.